Operation Napoleon

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘I guess so, sir,’ the pilot said uncertainly.

  ‘If it’s so harmless,’ another pilot asked, ‘why can’t we watch, sir? Why do we have to stay cooped up in the tent?’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Ratoff exclaimed under his breath. He sighed. ‘How many different ways can I put this, gentlemen? I am not required to give you any explanations.’ He went outside and beckoned three soldiers into the tent. ‘Shoot anyone who tries to leave,’ he ordered.

  The pilots stood in a huddle, shuffling together like stunned livestock, utterly baffled by this latest development. Brought to the middle of nowhere, witness to some inexplicable excavation, bound to secrecy and now held hostage by their own side, they stared speechlessly at one another and at their captor.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ demanded their leader at last. ‘What kind of treatment do you call this? How dare you? Who’ll fly the helicopters now?’

  ‘We have people for that. You’re surplus to requirements,’ Ratoff said and stalked out of the tent. A man stood waiting to join him as he walked down to the plane.

  ‘How was the flight?’

  ‘Like a dream,’ Bateman answered with a grin.

  VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,

  SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0015 GMT

  Kristín was met by an extraordinary, utterly surreal sight, a scene from science fiction. Perhaps it was the exhaustion that now coursed through her limbs like a dull drug, but all at once she felt she was losing her grip and succumbing to an overpowering sense of helplessness. Everything that had happened to her was reduced to a jumble of hallucinations, a long, intense nightmare in which she was on the run but could never move fast enough. Was she in fact still lying at home on the sofa? The sight that met her eyes made it hard to put the events in any sort of context, hard to distinguish between this outlandish reality and her own delirious imaginings.

  She saw the Pave Hawk helicopters perched side by side, their immensely long rotor-blades extending in all directions. About thirty tents of varying sizes were arranged in a semicircle; snowmobiles, tracked vehicles, trailers carrying oil-driven engines and portable generators, floodlights and satellite dishes and a host of other equipment she could not put a name to littered the area. Scores if not hundreds of personnel were milling around on the ice. Some, she now noticed, had begun to take down the tents – they were starting to clear up after themselves. She understood. They were finished here. Soon there would be no trace of them: the snow would obliterate their tracks. Deep down the realisation struck her, triggering a warning bell that gradually restored her wandering wits: they were leaving the glacier.

  Only then did she see the plane. It lay, cut in half, in a shallow depression in the ice. Two groups of people were busy fixing strong, thick slings around each half, attached to cables which extended in the direction of the helicopters. Evidently the helicopters were there to remove the plane wreckage and after that it would not take the soldiers long to disappear too.

  It was very still, several degrees below zero. The black vault of the night sky arched over the area, reflecting the glow of the powerful floodlights. The journey had been uneventful; she and Steve had been forced to ride pillion on the snowmobiles behind their captors, who maintained radio contact with the camp throughout. After fifteen or twenty minutes they had ascended a small ridge and the tents had come into view below them. The vehicles careered down the ridge and into the camp, stopping by one of the larger tents. She and Steve were shown inside, past two soldiers who stood guard either side of the opening.

  ‘Are you okay, Kristín?’ Steve asked once they were at the back of the tent, as far from the guards as possible.

  ‘Yes, and you? Are you all right?’

  As she looked at him, her thoughts strayed to what had happened between them at Jón’s farm. For a brief moment her present surroundings faded and she pictured a future with him.

  ‘Could be better,’ Steve said. ‘Could be at home watching basketball. There’s a big game on tonight, Lakers against the Bulls.’

  ‘It could hardly beat this,’ Kristín said. Neither of them smiled. Looking at Steve, she saw her own anxiety reflected in his face.

  She surveyed their canvas cell with a sudden sense of hopelessness. On the table sat a large gas lamp which lit up the tent and emitted a faint heat, but otherwise it was freezing inside. There were also four camp chairs and, at the back of the tent, close to where they were standing, they noticed several heavy canvas sheets spread out over the ice. She glanced towards the tent opening where the soldiers stood watching them.

  ‘I want to speak to Ratoff,’ Kristín called out but received no reaction.

  ‘Shouldn’t your rescue team be here by now?’ Steve asked under his breath, the worry just audible in his voice. ‘And the Coast Guard, or whatever it’s called? And the police and reporters and TV crews? Where’s CNN? Where’s the cavalry?’

  ‘I know,’ Kristín said. ‘Something must start happening soon. Look, let’s think for a minute. How can we get out of here? What is this tent anyway? What are they using it for?’

  She looked down at the sheets of canvas.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked in a low voice, backing further into the tent. Steve moved unobtrusively towards her. Distracted by the commotion outside, the guards had lost interest and gone back to watching the spectacle of a small army erasing all trace of itself. From under one of the tarpaulins, the corner of a grey body-bag could be glimpsed.

  ‘What have they got here?’ Steve whispered.

  Kristín stepped on the corner of the canvas and drew it quietly towards her, then repeated the movement. Her legs were stiff from the walk up to the glacier and weak from lack of food; it took all her concentration to stop the muscles in her thigh from going into spasm. The canvas shifted and she continued dragging her foot until she had partially uncovered what lay beneath. The body-bag was open at the top, the heavy-duty zip which joined the bag’s shiny grey folds drawn back perhaps ten inches. A peaked cap met their eyes, bearing the eagle and swastika insignia. When Kristín tugged with her foot a little more, a face appeared beneath the cap. They stared speechlessly at the body. It was a middle-aged man whose deathly pallor was almost as translucent as the ice. Kristín could hardly grasp what she was seeing; she stood in silent wonder, her attention riveted on this new discovery.

  Her heart nearly stopped when a hoarse voice spoke behind them.

  ‘Pretty sight, don’t you think? As if he’d died no more than a week ago.’

  Ratoff had entered the tent, with Bateman at his heel. Kristín instantly recognised the man who had twice tried to murder her; she also knew in her bones that she was finally standing face to face with Ratoff. She had formed an image of him which in no way fitted the man before her. He was so short that she almost burst out laughing. She had imagined a man well over six feet tall, yet here he was, a man with no physical presence whatsoever; in spite of his padded ski-suit, she could tell that he was nothing but skin and bone. For a moment it crossed her mind that he might be suffering from some incurable disease. His features looked vaguely Slavonic: a bony face, the cheekbones and chin jutting through the taut skin, a narrow, dead straight nose, and small, sharp, deep-set eyes. As he came closer she noticed that he had white rings round his pupils that made his eyes appear eerily bright. His ears were small and grew close to his head, and his mouth seemed to underline the cruelty above, but her attention was drawn irresistibly to the scar under his left eye. She could not stop staring at it. It was round like a little sun, radiating tiny grooves down his cheek.

  ‘You’re not the first,’ Ratoff said in his odd, rasping voice, noting the direction of her gaze: ‘She did her best.’ He scratched the raised purple outline of the old scar with one finger.

  ‘I hope it hurt,’ Kristín replied.

  ‘An accident,’ Ratoff said. ‘The bullet went right through my face and out behind my ear. I lost part of my voice, nothing else.’

  ‘Pity she didn’t kill you,
’ Kristín retorted.

  ‘She came close.’ He smiled. ‘Are you looking for your little brother, Kristín? I fear it may be too late to save him now.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure. He was alive the last I heard. It was a close call but if a shit like you can survive being hit point-blank, there’s still hope for him.’

  Ratoff considered this.

  ‘Icelandic women,’ he said at last, sliding his gaze over to Steve. ‘I’ve read about them. They are fond of sleeping with foreigners. Are you, Kristín?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Kristín growled.

  The thin line of Ratoff’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘We’re finished. And the best of it is that we were never here.’

  ‘Everyone knows. We’ve told everyone we could about you and the plane on Vatnajökull. It’s only a question of time before the glacier is crawling with well-informed observers and you won’t be able to throw all of them down a crevasse.’

  ‘That’s why we have to make haste. A pity I can’t spend a little more time with you two first. Bateman would especially enjoy that.’

  ‘So the asshole has a name,’ Kristín exclaimed.

  Bateman did not stir but Ratoff walked right up to Kristín, causing her to take an involuntary step backwards. His face touched hers. Looking deep into the small eyes, she saw nothing but cold revulsion. She breathed in his stale, sour smell.

  ‘You look like you have more guts than your little brother,’ he hissed from between his thin lips. ‘How he could howl. How he screamed and cried. First when I put his friend’s eyes out, then when I started on him. Whined and whined for his big sister. I thought he’d never stop. But she didn’t hear him. She was too busy fucking an American. You should have heard him. Very moving, it was.’

  He did not flinch, even when the saliva landed on his forehead and dribbled into his eye, just carried on in the same low, hoarse voice.

  ‘“Kristín” he moaned, but his big sister never came.’

  A special forces soldier appeared at the tent flap.

  ‘They’re ready with the choppers, sir,’ he called.

  Ratoff turned, wiping the saliva from his face. He glanced at Bateman and nodded.

  ‘Load the body bags into the plane,’ he ordered and started to walk away. He was halfway out of the tent when Kristín shouted at his back:

  ‘I know about Napoleon!’

  Ratoff stopped dead, then turned round.

  ‘I said I know all about Napoleon,’ Kristín repeated.

  ‘You have no idea what you are talking about,’ Ratoff said, entering the tent again.

  ‘I know about the Napoleon documents,’ Kristín continued, in a blind rage. ‘Or Operation Napoleon, as it was known.’

  ‘Tell me, Kristín. What exactly do you know about it? Or is it just a word you have heard? I’m afraid that’s not much of a card to play,’ Ratoff sneered.

  ‘Everything. What the Germans were up to,’ Kristín said, feeling her way blindly. ‘I know what your precious plane is hiding. A secret in a briefcase. No bomb, no gold, no virus. Just papers.’

  ‘Well, well. Let’s imagine you do. Who else knows about Napoleon?’ Ratoff asked, standing right in front of her again. His soulless eyes searched hers. He repeated his question and Kristín realised that she had touched a nerve but had no idea how to press her advantage. Her mind was blank. Under his gaze she felt paper-thin, transparent, exposed.

  ‘Who have you told about Napoleon?’ Ratoff asked, and Kristín saw a sudden flash of steel in his hand.

  KEFLAVÍK AIRPORT,

  SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0015 GMT

  Vytautas Carr stood in the doorway of hangar 11 at Keflavík Airport, gazing out into the night, his mind preoccupied, his nerves frayed. Although he could not see the C-17 in the darkness, he knew it was being prepared for take-off. The two halves of the plane would be airlifted from the glacier imminently, and if all went according to plan, they would have left Icelandic soil within three hours. Then it would be over.

  The Icelandic authorities were becoming increasingly agitated. More importantly, they were confident that they had legitimate grounds for protest and any hint of subservience in their relations with US officials had long been cast aside. The US embassy in Reykjavík had been questioned by the media in connection with the pub shooting and also what the press described as the military operations on Vatnajökull. As if that were not enough, the Reykjavík police had learnt of troop movements on the glacier; someone in the force knew Ratoff’s name and had been asking questions both of the embassy and also of the army authorities in Keflavík. A Coast Guard helicopter had been dispatched to pick up two men who were reported to have had an accident on the glacier. The Coast Guard were, moreover, aware that the Defense Force had failed to respond to a mayday from the men’s teammates. Meanwhile Reykjavík air traffic-control had been tracking the movements of the Pave Hawk helicopters. It would not be long before this information leaked out and people began to connect it with the fabricated volcanic eruption alert that had been broadcast earlier on the radio; they would draw their own conclusions. By then it would no longer be possible to suppress the affair.

  He had long reflected on the possible consequences if the purpose of the operation were exposed; not just the international outrage but also the consequences for him personally. It was his responsibility to ensure that the story of the plane never got out; he was in charge of the mission that had already cost two lives; it was he who had illegally deployed US special forces troops in the territory of a friendly nation and instigated a web of lies, fabrications and manipulation. The buck would stop with him. A few days ago he had been happily planning his retirement; now he was filled with trepidation about the future.

  The first priority was to secure the plane wreckage and what it contained. What happened after that did not really matter. The remaining soldiers would return to the base and the admiral would invent some halfway convincing untruth to account for the presence of his men on the glacier. They would bombard the Icelanders with misinformation until any news about the army came to be regarded as suspect. The process had already begun. They could expect public anger, condemnation and hostility, but it would all be for show, since Iceland still could not decide whether it wanted the American army in its territory or not. Carr was not losing any sleep over the public reaction. Economic considerations would prevail in the end. In a week or two nobody would give a damn about US military manoeuvres on Vatnajökull.

  The only real danger of exposure came from that woman, Kristín, but who would give her the time of day once the plane had left the country? Who would believe her crazed talk about a German World War II plane that had been buried in Vatnajökull for half a century, concealing something dangerous, incomprehensible, preposterous? Carr felt certain that she was ignorant of the real secret. How could she know? They had tracked her movements minutely and knew who she had spoken to before she went to the glacier; no, there was nothing to indicate that she knew or understood the reality. No lasting damage had been done. Carr kept telling himself this, willing it to be true.

  His thoughts strayed to the director of the operation and he wondered if he had put his faith in the wrong man when he chose Ratoff. Ratoff could be trusted to get things done but he exacted a high price in human lives in the process. Back in the early seventies, Carr had personally recruited him as a military intelligence agent; he had proved his worth but no one who worked with Ratoff felt any warmth towards him. He was a man people would rather not know, would rather turn a blind eye to. Eventually he became a type of invisible operative within the service, the subject of unconfirmed rumours that most preferred to ignore.

  Carr’s knowledge about his background before he joined the organisation was better than most, but still sketchy. He had signed up to the marines in 1968 and served in Vietnam for two consecutive tours of duty. By the time he came from Vietnam to meet Carr he already had the scar. Ratoff had a simple exp
lanation: an unfortunate accident; his rifle had caught between the door and door-frame in his barracks, firing a bullet into his face. The doctors had described it as a miracle that he did not hit an artery, his brain or spine, escaping with nothing more serious than damaged vocal cords. Carr, however, had sent a man to check up on his story who questioned the men in Ratoff’s platoon and heard various different accounts: Ratoff was a sadist who could always be trusted to go further than anyone else in trying to extract information from the enemy, even when there was no information to be had; he had maimed and killed to his heart’s content and it was said, though never confirmed, that he collected body parts from his victims as trophies. He would not have been the only marine to sport a necklace of human ears but Carr’s stomach turned at the thought. What was common to their stories was that Ratoff got his wound when a young Vietnamese woman managed to seize his gun and force him down on his knees in front of her, shooting him in the face. She had shot herself dead immediately afterwards.

  However distasteful his reported conduct, Ratoff had proved valuable to army intelligence in South America in the early seventies. He served in El Salvador and Nicaragua, then Chile and Guatemala, involving himself with the troops that the government sent in to support dictators. When the US government later cut back on its support for right-wing dictatorships following vociferous protests at home, Ratoff was relocated to the Middle East. There he continued with his old habits, gathering information by means that Carr preferred to remain ignorant of. He was stationed in Lebanon, serving for a period with Mossad. By this time Ratoff did not officially exist. His intelligence records had been taken out of ordinary circulation and Carr had become one of only a handful of senior officials who knew of his existence. That was another qualification to lead this operation. No one would miss him.

  A piercing wind blew about Carr as he stood by the hangar, wondering what kind of race could endure living in such perpetual cold and dark. He did not hear the serviceman approach or speak, remaining sunk in his thoughts and unaware of him until the newcomer took the liberty of touching his heavy woollen overcoat. Carr started.